Presidential Power - The quasi-war and after

John Adams thought carefully about the powers of the evolving presidency.
He believed in a strong executive because "the unity, the secrecy,
the dispatch of one man has no equal." To prevent abuses in the
office, he felt that "the executive power should be watched by all
men." He described the president as the leader of "a
monarchical republic" who exercised greater power than heads of
government in various European countries. He perceived the American
president's prerogatives as "so transcendent that they must
naturally and necessarily excite in the nation all the jealousy, envy,
fears, apprehensions, and opposition that are so constantly observed in
England against the crown." While deploring limitations on the
president's authority, as "in cases of war," he still
acknowledged that "the legislative power in our constitution is
greater than the executive."

In July 1797, after the French stepped up attacks on American commerce,
Adams moved to resolve the crisis, much of which he had inherited. When
French officials humiliated his emissaries, he asked his cabinet if he
should recommend to Congress an immediate declaration of war. When the
cabinet split, he decided against seeking a formalized war, sent copies of
the envoys' dispatches to Congress substituting the letters W, X,
Y, and Z for the French officials involved, and asked the legislators to
authorize preparations for war. He also took steps to protect the lives of
American citizens from French attacks and to convey publicly the image of
a vigorous executive. When Congress, under Federalist pressure, published
the XYZ documents, much of the public reacted with a demand for war that
brought Adams a popularity he had always lacked. He gloried in the role of
a warrior-leader, delivering numerous combative speeches while sporting a
military uniform and a sword. He told approving crowds, "Let us
have war." This bellicosity alarmed opposition Republicans. One of
them, George Logan of Pennsylvania, warned that ambitious executives
launched wars more for their own aggrandizement than for the protection of
their country.

Despite such sentiment, Federalists in Congress voted for warlike
measures. For the first time under the Constitution, in recognition of
undeclared hostilities at sea, Congress empowered the president to deploy
naval forces on a scale larger than a short-term police action. When
extreme Federalists pressured Adams to expand this Quasi-War, as it later
became known, Adams wavered. He did so not because of an unwillingness to
use more force but because he questioned his power to do so without the
consent of Congress. He believed, furthermore, that minority Republicans,
with some moderate Federalists, would vote against a declaration of war.

Extreme Federalists then characterized Adams as lacking the virile
qualities they presumed necessary in the strong executive. Feeling
betrayed by many of his own party on this issue, Adams changed his
perspective toward a full-scale war. Consequently, when the French offered
a second round of peace negotiations, Adams welcomed the overture. He then
a sent a second mission to France, and expansion of the Quasi-War became
an issue in the presidential campaign of 1800. Republicans portrayed
themselves as friends of peace and Federalists as partisans of war. On 1
October the American negotiators in France signed the Convention of
Mortefontaine that ended the war. News of the peace arrived in the United
States too late to benefit Adams in the election. Thomas Jefferson won.
Nonetheless, Adams later regarded his decision for peace as the
"most disinterested and meritorious action of my life." It
set a noble example for posterity but his use of naval force set a less
admirable precedent. Future presidents would invoke it, under the concept
of an implied constitutional power, when they employed the military
unilaterally in limited hostilities against weak foes.

Even though Jefferson took office as a believer in strict construction,
meaning a narrow interpretation of the Constitution, he acted on the
assumption of a magnified construction of presidential power in foreign
policy in the pattern set by Washington. He claimed that only the
president could carry on transactions with foreign governments. Within two
weeks of his inauguration, Jefferson decided to send four warships to
North Africa to protect American shipping against attack by alleged
pirates along the Barbary Coast.

Shortly thereafter he asked his cabinet if he should seek a declaration of
war from Congress. Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin responded that the
president "cannot put us in a state of war," but if other
nations put us in that state the executive could on his own use military
force. Without consulting Congress or receiving its sanction, he waged
war, or what later would be called a police action, against the Barbary
States. Later, Congress did authorize the president to employ the navy at
his discretion.

Meanwhile, after Jefferson learned in May 1801 that France had reacquired
Louisiana from Spain, his strict constructionist views clashed with his
concept of a strong executive power in foreign affairs. He considered the
possibility of war to block consummation of the transfer and to safeguard
the American right of deposit at New Orleans. First, in January 1801, he
sent a special emissary to France with a proposal to purchase New Orleans
and territory at the mouth of the Mississippi River. When Napoleon
Bonaparte offered to sell all of the Louisiana Territory, Jefferson
hesitated to act on his own. Soon, though, he decided to act
"beyond the Constitution" and not let "metaphysical
subtleties" stand in the way of a great bargain that would benefit
the nation. He thus added to the precedents for extending presidential
authority in international matters beyond its original constitutional
limits. Under the concept of enlarged authority, Jefferson claimed, on
questionable ground, Spain's West Florida as part of the Louisiana
Purchase. He threatened force if Spain did not acquiesce. Although most
cognizant Americans approved of his bellicosity as proper presidential
vigor, he backed off from hostilities mainly because of deteriorating
relations with England and France. In a crisis with Britain in June 1807,
when a British warship attacked the American naval frigate
Chesapeake,
Jefferson at first appeared eager for war, but when public sentiment for
it dwindled he retreated. When he left office, he retained faith in the
strong executive willing to use military force with the support of
Congress and in some circumstances on his own.

When James Madison took over the White House, he had the experience of
having helped create the presidency and, as Jefferson's secretary
of state, of having administered foreign affairs for eight years. Still,
he had less confidence in executive authority than did Jefferson. He had
frequently expressed the view that the president, "being a single
individual, with nothing to balance his faults and deficiencies, was as
likely to go wrong as the average citizen." His views fluctuated
over time, leading him later to believe "in the large construction
of Executive authority," notably in the conduct of foreign affairs.

As president, Madison secretly backed American settlers who in July 1810
seized West Florida from its Spanish authorities. For a time he hesitated
in annexing it to the United States, fearing such openly unilateral action
would raise "serious questions as to the authority of the
Executive." Within four months he overcame his qualms and took over
the territory. Many Americans applauded what they saw as proper
presidential power. One senator said that if the president had not taken
West Florida, he would have been charged with imbecility.

For almost three years, Madison resisted pressure from hawks in his own
party to take bold measures against Britain, action that would most likely
precipitate war. Federalists, however, opposed hostilities. When on 1 June
1812 he requested a declaration of war, he used his power to persuade
wavering legislators to support him. During the hostilities he could not,
however, capitalize on that power without encountering considerable public
defiance. The war went badly and became unpopular. Critics denounced him
for lacking effective leadership. Some scholars would later characterize
him as a failed executive and a weak war leader. Yet in annexing West
Florida he had been high-handed and as tough as his predecessors.

James Monroe, too, acquired a reputation as a passive leader, but he
contributed to the enlarging of presidential power in international
affairs through the use of an executive agreement. In the Rush-Bagot
Agreement in April 1817 with Britain that limited naval armaments on the
Great Lakes, he bypassed the Senate's veto power over treaties. He
thus set the precedent for unilateral action that technically operated
only during the term of a president who negotiated an agreement.
Nonetheless, executive agreements became an effective means for presidents
to exercise power in foreign affairs without congressional consent.

Monroe faced the possibility of war with England and Spain when Andrew
Jackson, at the head of a small army, in April 1818 raided East Florida
and executed two English subjects. Although Monroe had not authorized the
incursion, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams defended Jackson, stating
that his actions involved "the Executive power to authorize war
without a declaration of war by Congress." He believed that if the
president disclaimed such power he would set "a dangerous example;
and of evil consequences." Monroe quickly embraced this argument,
calling Jackson's invasion of a neighbor's territory
self-defense. Critics denounced the invasion as an act of war without the
consent of Congress. "If it be not war…," one of them
stated, "let it be called a man-killing expedition which the
President has a right to direct whenever he pleases."

Several years later, when militants wanted Monroe to defend Spain's
rebelling colonies against recon quest, he decided to act on his own but
not with force. On 2 December 1823, he warned European powers not to
intervene in the New World struggles. This concept, in what became known
as the Monroe Doctrine and accepted by future presidents, demonstrated
another aspect of executive power in foreign matters, the ability to
influence with words.

Through deed as well as word, Andrew Jackson acquired the reputation of a
vigorous no-nonsense president in both foreign and domestic affairs. His
concept of an expansive authority surfaced in an incident in 1831 with
Argentine authorities in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas). On the
basis of slim evidence, he accused them of endangering the lives of
American seal hunters. He threatened force that critics said brought the
nation to the brink of war, but he did not go much beyond words.

In another dispute, when marauders from the town of Kuala Batu, Sumatra,
killed three American pepper traders, Jackson used force. On his orders,
on 6 February 1832, an assault force of 262 heavily armed marines attacked
the town, torched it, and slaughtered more than a hundred Sumatrans, some
of them women. Political opponents wondered, "If the President can
direct expeditions with fire and sword against the Malays…why may
he not have the power to do the same in reference to any other
people." In this manner, "a very important provision of the
Constitution may in time become a mere nullity." Defenders, though,
praised Jackson for his executive energy.

Jackson also secretly aided American rebels in Texas in their fight in
1836 to secede from Mexico. In addition, he occupied militarily Mexican
territory, ostensibly to protect Louisiana from cross-border raiders. John
Quincy Adams, who had now abandoned his earlier advocacy of a presidential
war authority, condemned this "most extraordinary power" as
illegal. When Congress approved Jackson's action, Adams commented,
the startling "idea that the Executive Chief Magistrate has the
power of involving the nation in war even without consulting
Congress" had taken root. It had grown, he maintained, out of fifty
years of presidents' de facto exercise of such power.

Contemporaries characterized John Tyler as a man with talents not above
mediocrity while historians rate him a weak president. Yet, he came up
with a tactic for placing more power in the hands of the executive at the
expense of Congress that later presidents would adopt. He wanted to
acquire Texas but could not obtain a two-thirds majority in the Senate for
a treaty of annexation. So, he asked the whole Congress to approve
annexation with joint resolution that required only a mere majority. It
agreed. Opponents, who called this action an abuse of power that evaded
constitutional restraint, urged impeachment. Tyler prevailed, he explained
later, because in handling foreign affairs he had been "freer of
the furies of factional politics than he had been in domestic
affairs."